Ghibli Month: An Aside

As Ace and I have been going through these movies—some for the first time, some for a review—the trends and tropes that are specific to a particular director really start to stick out. For all intents and purposes, the more trope-y of the two directors is certainly Miyazaki, but again I feel as though that has more to do with his intended audience than his lack of creativity or inability to simply write a different story.

For a younger audience, it’s certainly easier to equate a message or a lesson with a certain set-up, and with so many of his films being about coming of age, Miyazaki had to have known that. Reading our previous review on Spirited Away, you’ll remember that I’m not particularly fond of the “everyone’s gotta be in love” trope and Ace’s peeve is the “strong females have short hair” trope (from the Princess Mononoke post); however the trope I’m going to discuss today is a little less overt and has much less to do with the perception of gender. Rather, it’s much more intertwined with the actual emotional state of growing up.

Art by hyung86 @ Deviantart

Usually, character-wise, the set-up of a Miyazaki coming of age film is laid out as follows: protagonist has lengthened exposure to one person (the friend/love interest) while strengthening familial bonds or creating bonds with their pseudo-family, then a smattering of secondary friends and acquaintances (with the ‘antagonist’ usually being a situation rather than an actual person). However, to add a dash of the fantastical even in a completely normal setting, and to set the tone of the protagonist’s maturity journey, Miyazaki employs a character that is readily found in many other forms of media: the animal sidekick.

‘Smash’ Season 2 Preview

The NBC show Smash is a show that I almost feel I like out of sheer force of will. I want to like it so I do, despite frequently being let down by it. Well, Smash will be returning for its second season on Tuesday, February 5 but a 44 minute sneak peek of the premiere is available on the channel’s website here. I’m looking forward to the premiere and following the show for another season, but there were a lot of issues with the show in season one, primarily due to its characterization and story development.

If you’re unfamiliar with the show, it follows the creation of a musical from conception to Broadway opening. The majority of the series, however, follows the personal lives of the people involved in the musical, from the creative team to the cast and this I believe is detrimental to the story. It’s not that the show couldn’t or shouldn’t focus on the characters’ lives outside the musical (though obviously I, personally, would like to see more focus on the theatre side of the story) but the problem is that the characters are so poorly written.

Big Time Rush: The Show (Continued Some More)

Ah yes, like a bad penny, my series dedicated to Nickelodeon’s Big Time Rush turns up once again! Continuing from my last entry in the series (all the way back in November, can you believe it??) I will be talking about character development in the show, this time focusing on the secondary characters who richly populate this show.

The first secondary characters to whom the show introduces us are arguably the most important: record producer Gustavo Rocque and his personal assistant Kelly Wainwright. The pair have been across the United States looking for their new pop star and the journey has worn on them so what we first see is a stressed exaggeration of their personalities, but we get a feel for them. Kelly is a capable young woman who is good at her job and getting work done. Gustavo is a pompous producer with a short fuse who’s desperate to get back to his glory days. Both are focused on their business and doing all they can to make their trip a success, though Kelly is pretty clearly the more competent of the two in that regard, so there’s a cautious “woop woop” in order for the empowered woman; hopefully she won’t be a cold stereotype of the Strong Female Character variety.

When the pair meet Kendall and his friends they don’t really know how to react to them. Gustavo tries yelling and intimidation, even though it continues to fail in getting results. I believe it was Einstein who said “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” and by that definition Gustavo is definitely insane. His temper and futile attempts at control are often a source of comedy on the show, while Kelly tends to exhibit Only Sane Man qualities, especially in the early days of the show. I say “in the early days of the show” because this post is about character arcs and both Gustavo and Kelly have grown quite a bit from their introduction.

Big Time Rush: The Show (Continued)

I finally get to talk about Big Time Rush again! After that self-imposed restriction of only talking about Halloween-y stuff last month I can finally post about other things I love which means getting back to BTR.

You were all waiting with bated breath, I just know it.

Last time I talked about the show I gave kind of a cursory glance to various aspects of it and today I’d like to dive a little more deeply into a few of the things I mentioned in that post.

One of the things I have loved about this show from the very beginning is the characterization. This is something I go absolutely crazy for in any media (be it television, literature, film, or theatre) and the writers of BTR put great effort into creating worthwhile, rounded characters in their show right off the bat. I’ve already talked about the four main guys’ basic character traits so today I’d like to talk more about their development along with the other characters in the show.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Wes Craven’s 1984 classic A Nightmare on Elm Street is my all-time favorite horror movie and honestly ranks as one of my favorite movies of any genre. There’s so much that’s great about this movie (and its sequels of varying quality) and so much to unpack (from the characters to the story telling to the strong women and of course the horror icon Freddy Krueger) that I’ll definitely be coming back to it to discuss more in the future, but I couldn’t let the month of Halloween slip by without talking about ANOES at least once.

My Babysitter’s a Vampire

My Babysitter’s a Vampire is a made-for-TV movie which launched a half-hour TV series of the same name. It is aimed at teens and tweens and airs in the US on the Disney Channel, coming to us from our neighbors to the north (eh?) where it airs on Teletoon.

BEFORE YOU ROLL YOUR EYES

I know this is a kids’ show capitalizing on the vampire craze. I know, but before you rush to judge, I urge you to hear me out because this show is actually pretty awesome.

Big Time Rush: The Show

The pilot episode of Big Time Rush premiered on Nickelodeon in November of 2009. It told the story of four best friends attending high school in a small town in Minnesota, getting into mischief, playing hockey, and caring for each other. These four friends are Kendall Knight, Logan Mitchell, Carlos Garcia, and James Diamond and their personalities are established fairly clearly in their first escapade: soaking the girls’ field hockey team with a sprinkler prank. Kendall is our leader, Logan is cautious, Carlos is reckless, and James is ambitious.

It is James’ ambition to be a popstar which eventually leads all four boys to an audition for former boyband manager Gustavo Rocque, who is looking for a new solo artist. Though Kendall, Logan, and Carlos only attend the audition to support James they all end up on the audition list thanks to an exasperated assistant by the name of Kelly Wainwright, who has already travelled the country with Rocque and found no one worth signing. After James, Logan, and Carlos are all berated by Gustavo for their auditions, Kendall takes the stage and mocks the record producer’s sappy pop ballads and cheesy dance routines which haven’t been popular in the last ten years.

It is in this show of contempt that Gustavo sees the necessary “fire” in Kendall and offers him the contract with Rocque Records. Kendall quickly and defiantly tells the man he can forget about it.

After his friends tell Kendall he would be stupid not to take this opportunity and assure him they each would if they were in his position, however, he accepts Gustavo’s offer on the condition that he take all four boys and make a singing group rather than a solo act. Faced with heading back to LA with either a group or nothing at all, Gustavo begrudgingly allows Kendall’s terms and he takes the four boys along with Kendall’s mother, Jennifer, and younger sister, Katie, to Los Angeles to work on the new pop group.

Big Time Rush: The Guys

These guys are life-rooners, in the best possible way

Talk to any member of online BTR fandom and chances are they’ll tell you that the boys of BTR have rooned their life.

Because that’s what they do.

Once you fall in love with this incredible quartet there’s no going back, so I give you fair warning: if you don’t want to sacrifice even more of your free time to online fanning you may want to turn away now. You’ll be missing out on something amazing, but I couldn’t blame you. I’m going to do my best to describe what makes each of these boys so amazing, in real life and as the characters they portray on their show.

James Maslow

James Maslow is probably the best singer in the group. He has a background in choral and operatic training and he can pull off vocal gymnastics that I just did not expect from a pop group. He is very sweet in interviews, though to be honest I don’t find him as dynamic as the other three and he’s the one I know the least about. I can say that he’s very genuine in interviews but doesn’t seem to have the ease and humor that Carlos, Logan, and Kendall do when in front of the camera. In a way, I respect that though because that’s probably how I’d be. I tend to be exuberant when around my friends but in public or with people with whom I’m not close I get very reserved and polite. I think James is similar because when he talks with the other guys (especially when they mistakenly think they aren’t being recorded) he loosens up a lot and cracks jokes.

James Diamond

James’ character on the show is shallow and self-obsessed. It is his dream of becoming a pop star which sets the whole show in motion. Frankly, I don’t much like James Diamond and I’m sure this leads to my disconnect with James Maslow. I know they’re different people but disliking his character, though not making me dislike the performer, has made me less interested in learning more about the actor. James has grown significantly more layered as the show has progressed, however.

Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapter 2—I Mean, Everything That’s Wrong with the Book

I like to write. I don’t think that’s a big secret. I have this blog, my fanfiction, my own original works, consisting of anything between full novels and poems, etc. No, I’m not published. But as I was editing one of my chapters the other day, I was struck by how much time I always end up on a single sentence, making sure I get the exact wording down, to say everything I need to say without wasting an audience’s valuable time. And it’s amazing how easy it is to do that. One wrong word can ruin everything.

Writing a story is an art form, and it can be very complex. Unfortunately, it can fall flat if the author doesn’t seem to be aware of everything that’s going on and breezes over issues. One misplaced sentence or grammatical mistake can completely invalidate a preexisting plot point or contradict something important. And not only is there the plot to consider, there’s the tone, character development, so on and so forth. And let’s not forget the message. A mess up on any one of these can turn what would otherwise be a good story into a terrible story.

And while I obviously didn’t think too highly of the first chapter, despite my like, and wasn’t really planning on picking up the book again anytime soon, a few nights ago found me finally taking a look at the second chapter for whatever reason (my mom told me not to read anymore because the newspaper taught her it’s basically porn and therefore sinful, so I had to continue, because she yelled at me not to. Yes, I’m that childish).

Fanfiction Fridays: Over-identifying with Sam Winchester

[NOTE: This is my first time using the delayed publish feature, so if this shows up any time other than 12:00 PM on Friday, July 29 I apologize]

Today I’m bringing another fic from the author BehrBeMine, this time a “Supernatural” story. This is a oneshot and it’s the story that really made me love her as an author. It’s titled “The Good Son“.

Now, before reading this you need to think back. Remember the Winchesters as we knew them in the first season, when this story was written. Sam and Dean had a strained relationship due primarily to their issues with their father, and Sam in particular seemed to internalize the conflict the most.

This was one of the things which kept me interested in the show. I was already drawn to it due to the supernatural, horror movie aspect of it and the fact that Jared Padalecki was starring, but this family drama which hit incredibly close to home for me was a big part of why I continued tuning in. I really identified with Sam and this story captures exactly why and I truly have never been so personally touched by a fanfic since. The story isn’t too long but in the concise work the author is able to wonderfully explore and express Sam’s emotions while telling his back story in a somewhat nonlinear method.

The story definitely feels like it was written during the first season since Sammy has changed so much over the course of the show, but I don’t think that makes this piece any less worthwhile or true in its characterization, it’s just that it explores a Sammy who is very much of the past so it can feel somewhat dated.

I recommend this story for all “Supernatural” fans, especially those who connected with Sam from the beginning.